


Wondering If I've Felt This Way Before

by cold_nights_summer_days



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Crying, Depression, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29852994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cold_nights_summer_days/pseuds/cold_nights_summer_days
Summary: Peter Parker is gone.May Parker is gone.And Tony Stark is left to pick up the pieces.-----With both of the Parkers gone, Tony has to pack up their apartment. Title from Nothing's The Same by Alexander 23.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 9
Kudos: 68





	Wondering If I've Felt This Way Before

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! It's been forever! Honestly I thought I was done writing for this fandom but this one just sucked me back in!
> 
> Aside from that, I hope you are having a wonderful day/evening, depending on when you're reading this, and that you enjoy this fic <3

Tony Stark has been back for two weeks. It’s been a weird two weeks, and honestly, he’s not even sure that he remembers most of it. Between the pain meds and the excessive sleeping and the general disassociation, there’s a solid three hours that he can recount coherently. But hey, that’s what happens when it’s the end of the world and your kid disintegrates in your arms. 

(It’s been a long two weeks. A long month and a half, really.)

But now there’s something that he needs to do. FRIDAY searched every database, called every number she had for May Parker, and she’s nowhere to be found. That means she’s gone, too. That means that both of the Parkers are gone . . . and that leaves one Tony Stark to pick up the shattered pieces.

Pepper and several of the Avengers (ex Avengers? The situation is still a little fuzzy, if Tony’s being honest. Like he said: drugs, disassociation, sleeping. Everything is fuzzy.) offered to go to the Parkers apartment and pack up their things so that Tony wouldn’t have to. But he wants to.

Well, he doesn’t want to, but if it does have to be done, he wants to be the one that does it. None of the others knew May and Peter like he did, and it would feel wrong for a stranger’s hands to touch all of their things. It would feel wrong for someone else to take their photos off the wall. It would feel wrong for someone else to wash the dishes still sitting in the sink.

There aren’t many things that Tony feels like he can do right now, and he isn’t really sure that he can do this, either, but feels like he should. Strangers shouldn’t be packing away the nooks and crannies of the Parker’s lives into cardboard boxes. It wouldn’t feel right.

Tony Stark drives into the city with a trunk full of boxes and a large coffee in the cup holder. He isn’t going to get tired (sleep is never easy, but especially not now), but it’s nice to have something familiar. He tries not to think too hard about the fact that most of the time when he drives into the city like this, it’s to drop Peter back off at home.

(He fails at that. He’s been failing at a lot of things, recently. Saving the world. Saving Peter Parker. Saving himself.)

(Tony wonders if it’s worth it. The world is forever going to remember him as the one who couldn’t save them: does he really want to stick around for that?)

After having to take the back roads to their apartment complex, Tony waits in the car for a few minutes before lugging the boxes up the stairs. A few people come and go, but there aren’t many people out in the streets these days. Cars are still piled up, garbage lines the sidewalks, and piles of ash are everywhere. On the windier days, it swirls through the air and settles on cars and windowsills.

(It’s hard to move on in a world that screams of the past. Most people can’t drown it out.)

Tony takes one last look at the building before sighing and popping the trunk. Nobody pays him any attention while he carries boxes up the stairs and unlocks the Parker’s front door. He nearly gags at first when the smell of rotten food hits him. Maybe he should have let someone come in here to at least clean out the fridge and open some windows.

One glance around the room, and Tony knows that the kitchen will have to be dealt with first. He opens the windows to let in fresh air and sets to work pulling out the garbage bags from under the sink and a pair of rubber gloves that were hidden under there, too. They’re bright pink, and Tony is sure that if May could see him she’d want a picture to prove that the moment ever happened. Maybe he’d take one for her. 

After Tony washes the dishes in the sink and cleans out the fridge, he puts together the first box. He forgot to bring paper or bubble wrap for the dishes (planning ahead: one more thing he’s failed at), so he messages Pepper and asks her to bring some over later. Until then, he decides to pack up the living room first. There are a million blankets stashed in the closet and in the ottoman and even more on the couch that he folds carefully into a box.

(Most of them actually used to be his. Peter stole them from the Compound over the years and accumulated a collection of sorts. A couple Tony recognizes as birthday gifts from Ned.

Ned, who is also gone. It feels like the rest of Peter’s life had disappeared with him. _Why not me? Why couldn’t you take me, too?_ )

Blankets, throw pillows, movies. Most of it goes by like a blur until he has to take the pictures off the wall. May and Ben on their wedding day. May, Ben, and Peter on vacation. Peter and Ned in freshman year. Peter and Tony on the day they made his internship official.

There are photos of major moments and small moments too: first days of school, family movie nights, homecoming. Tony looks at each one as he carefully packs it away. He wants to feel something when he sees them staring back at him, but all he feels is nothing. Numb. Empty.

His family went somewhere that he can’t follow no matter how badly he wants to.

“I’m sorry,” Tony says to each picture. The people in the picture don’t know that he’s going to let them down yet. They’re happy. They’re alive. They’re blissfully unaware of the shit show that the world is going to become in only a few years, months, weeks.

It would be a miracle that Tony gets through the photos without crying if he still thought there was some higher power looking out for him somewhere. As it were, he only considers that small triumph as a bit of luck.

He cries when he packs up Peter’s room, though. He cries when he packs away AcaDec awards, science fair medals, and scholarship offers. He cries when he packs shitty science pun t-shirts. He cries when he packs away the old toys hidden on the top closet shelf. He cries when he packs away Iron Man memorabilia that he knew Peter had but was too embarrassed to admit to.

_He thought I was a hero. I was his hero. And I couldn’t save him. He begged me – he begged me not to go, and all I did was watch._

_I watched, and he disappeared, and I’m still here and he isn’t and—_

_And now I’m packing his things because he isn’t here. He’s gone._

Eventually, Peter’s room is empty of everything that matters. Tony closes and locks the window that he knows Peter always snuck out of, turns out the light, and shuts the door. Packing May’s room isn’t any easier. He remembers nights they spent watching old movies while Peter was patrolling, and dinners that he and Pepper shared with her, and moments spent in the medbay hallway praying that this time wouldn’t be the last. He remembers shared tears, anxiety attacks, and burnt dinners.

Maybe that’s the worst part. Remembering. Realizing that the people you think about are gone. Realizing that you won’t share any more moments with them, make any more memories. Realizing that you’re the only one left.

(Realizing that you could have saved them if you’d just been better. If you’d tried harder.)

Soon, there isn’t anything left to do except come back with a truck to take all the boxes to the Compound. Tony makes sure that there isn’t anything left in any drawers or closets or cabinets. He doesn’t want to forget anything.

(Well, that’s a lie. He wants to forget almost everything. He just doesn’t want to leave behind anything important.)

Standing by the front door, Tony takes in a deep breath. He tries to picture the Parker’s alive and well in the living room, but he comes up empty. All he can see is brown cardboard and the hole they left behind in his life.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys liked this! Check out my tumblr for more content like this (@frog-beans) and maybe even the rest of my ao3 page if you want more :)


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